The global recession continues to create new realities for students, institutions, and faculty members engaged in higher education. This blog chronicles those changes for academic / historical record purposes. Click on the URL at the end of each posting to view the complete news report.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Taking Militancy to College - Jeff Schuhrke & Dawn Tefft, Jacobin

Like their counterparts in K-12, academic workers in public higher ed have organized to challenge austerity. Rauner also seems to disdain public education at the university level. Upon entering office last year, the former private equity mogul proposed cutting state funding to public higher-ed institutions by 31 percent. Meanwhile, his anti-worker proposals instigated a catastrophic statewide budget stalemate that left public universities without funding for a year, until a temporary stopgap budget was passed this summer to keep colleges afloat for a few months. Higher education will see a drop in funding regardless of how the impasse is resolved, however, as state Democrats have proposed a 6.5 percent cut to public universities. Chicago State University (CSU) — the only four-year college in Illinois with a predominantly black student body — saw only eighty-six new freshmen enroll this fall after much public speculation about whether the university would be closed due to budget cuts.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/12/ctu-uic-higher-ed-rauner-austerity/